


Quiet Conversations

by ilyena-sylph (ilyena_sylph)



Category: Damar Series - Robin McKinley
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena-sylph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's in her dreams that Aerin can talk to Harry. So she does, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Conversations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinetheway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinetheway/gifts).



Aerin lay in Luthe's arms, her head tucked against his shoulder, idly drowsing. She spent quite a bit of time in that sort of state, despite the fact that the Lake of Dreams could no longer cloud her mind the way it did to their more mortal visitors. It was easier to drowse, to pass the moments in idle rest, than it was to pay too much attention to the passing of time. The thing no fable or great heroic saga of gods and demons had ever said -- that she knew of, at least -- was just how _boring_ immortality could be and often was, especially to a woman that had had her sort of adventures back when she could ride the world as herself.

Maur had been the last of the great dragons (praise all the bright gods), and before her beloved Tor had died, she and those she'd trained had taken care of the little ones. Gonturan had remained with her eldest daughter when Aerin had left the palace, had remained in the hands of first sols and Queens with _kelar_ ever since. Sometimes, she knew what the Blue Sword's bearer was doing, in that way that Gonturan always had of making herself known, but... it was difficult, those first centuries, to hear what was happening in her country without her there.

Difficult had not been the right word for what had happened far later.

Luthe had had to lock her inside his hall with every spell he knew during the decade when the Outlanders first came to Damar. She could think on it wryly now, despite her fury then. She had always loved Damar, even when it had not loved her, and now, when they sang the stories of her as she had sung the stories of Aerinha and Gorthold, she could not help but have her attention called to their travails. Although she had seen the Outlanders coming, had seen past their coming to the arrival of the blonde woman that would ride a horse as golden as her hair and finally throw back the Northern demon-army at last, she had still railed and raged against this 'destiny' for her people with every sharp word she could think of, arguing with Luthe until the very air shone gold around her and he held a hand up against his eyes --

\-- and he had yet convinced her that it would be no favor to any of her people should she return, that even her _kelar_ could not stop the inevitable. She could admit, now, that he was right. She would only have reduced her people further, had she gone to help them as herself. Not that she'd had any intention of doing that in the first place, but even had she tried to hide, she would have exposed herself as Aerin Fire-Hair returned in too little time, simply with the power in her blood and her coloring. Despite all her _kelar_ , she was still only one woman (and one horse, as she rode one of Talat's fine-blooded many-times grandsons) against that too-ordered army. She would change but little, and only for the worse, Luthe had argued, and eventually she had subsided. There were some days that loving an oracle was nothing but infuriating. Though every so often she _was_ still right. It just didn't happen nearly often enough for her tastes.

She was fond of Harry, though. That half-Outlander girl had become a damalur-sol and Queen to be reckoned with, and Aerin was quite pleased to have been able to watch it happen, to have been able to lend her what aid she could, what luck she had. She'd grown into it well, even if Aerin still wasn't sure what to think of their having named their first child after her and an Outlander woman.

No... she knew what she thought of it. She was pleased, and hopeful, that the girl might be a sign of peace between her people and the Outlanders. And thinking of Harry... she was dreaming again. It was in Harry's dreams that she could speak with her, that she could reach out to her and try to help her be a little less homesick. Without stirring at all from Luthe's arms she stretched out and slipped into the edge of Harry's dreaming mind, gentle and easy.

'Harry,' she murmured, low and soft, and the fuzzy dreamscape around them shifted to something much like the blue palace she had first seen a vision of Harry in, centuries and centuries before she was born. Or possibly she'd seen her there in truth, and then Luthe had dragged her back... Thinking about the time immediately after her fight with Agsded still gave her an unpleasant headache, and she stopped because she didn't care to share that unpleasantness with Harry.

'Lady Aerin,' Harry's voice was quiet, and despite her affection, there was a trace of fear in her voice. 'What is it?'

'Shhh,' Aerin said in answer, 'I just wanted to... say hello. Find out how your daughter is doing. I'm flattered, by the way.'

'...you are?'

She couldn't help but smile at the surprise in Harry's words, and she stretched one hand out to brush through Harry's hair in the dreamworld around them, her callused fingers gentle as they slid through that golden silk. 'Of course I am. So, how is she?'

'A **handful** ,' Harry said, her mouth curved in a wry, affectionate smile.

'Well,' Aerin murmured, amused, 'she could hardly be anything else, with the name you gave her...'

' _You_ , lady?'

Aerin had to laugh at that, laugh until her hair fell into her eyes and she was short of breath, and she nodded intently, watching Harry's wide eyes with yet another laugh. 'Oh, yes. My nurse despaired of me regularly. If it wasn't the saddle-oil on my best court dress, it was my helplessness with a needle. If it wasn't my helplessness with a needle, it was my penchant for injuring myself. Let alone the sheer amount of dishes I broke -- I was rather a clumsy child.'

'I thought I was the only one,' Harry said, her eyes still so very wide. 'Not that I had a nurse, and mother was so good about not fussing -- she agreed with me about most things -- but I always had skinned knees, and scraped elbows, and I still can't sew... And that's _not_ the kind of thing that's in the songs about you, either! '

'Well, no,' Aerin agreed, 'of course it's not. People do like for their legendary heroines to be, well... legendary.'

Harry stared at her for a few moments, and Aerin just smiled at her, before she said, 'They're going to sing about you, too, you know.'

'They already _are_ ,' Harry said, and Aerin's mouth curved, amused, 'and it's not like I can say 'no, no, that's not how it happened' when Jack and Dickie are so willing to encourage the songs -- '

'Mmm,' Aerin murmurs, 'I remember the first time I heard one of the songs about me... One of my cousins, who cordially loathed me -- and I him -- decided that it would be just delightful to sing that horrible song about my hair being brighter than dragonfire and thus shaming the dragons to death in front of the entire _court_. He and his wretched wife -- not that they were married then, and not that she didn't eventually quit being so wretched -- found it _ever_ so enjoyable...'

She really should not have enjoyed the look of horrified shock on Harry's face the way she did, but she hadn't had anyone to trade stories with about herself in... possibly forever, other than Luthe, who hardly counted.

'But, you -- '

'Were the daughter of an Outland woman who had married the king, and I wasn't a bit well-thought-of,' Aerin said, shaking her head. 'They were full-blooded royal, and not inclined to let me forget that I wasn't.'

Harry's expressive, mobile mouth tightened, and the bright shine of her eyes flared dangerously -- and dangerously close to waking her.

'Shh,' Aerin murmured, 'it ended well. And if I cared about such things, it would be the worst fate either of them could imagine to have been so totally forgotten as your reaction tells me they have been. So. In the end, they mattered very little. Not,' she said softly, 'that it didn't hurt at the time.'

Harry flinched, her head turning away for a moment... and then Aerin was surprised as Harry's war-strong arms wrapped tight around her, pulled her in against her chest and held her close. Not so surprised that she could not return the embrace, her hands spreading on the backs of Harry's shoulders, holding her. 'It's not right,' Harry said, her voice sharp and knowing against her ear, 'but... yes. I know.'

Aerin shifted her head, looking at Harry's gold-flecked eyes -- her _kelar_ was waking, this dream wouldn't hold her much longer unless Aerin struggled for it, and she wouldn't do that to Harry -- with just a flicker of a smile. 'So you do. You can't protect little Aerin from some of that... but you know how to make sure she does know she's loved, the way my father did for me.'

'The way Mother did for me,' Harry agreed, and dropped her head against Aerin's shoulder for a moment. 'I... I will.'

'Harry,' Aerin said, soft and gentle, 'I know that... and you're coming awake.' She felt the dreamworld rippling away with a flicker of loss.

'I don't want to,' Harry said, holding on to her tighter, 'I don't -- you're *real*, and you know, and -- '

'Shhh... Shhh, little sister,' Aerin murmured, her voice ever so gentle, 'I won't go away forever. I promise. But your life is in the waking world, not here in dreams...'

'You'll come back?'

'I will,' Aerin agreed, stroking her hand through Harry's golden hair again. 'Shhh, I will. Now, go on, wake up. You're worrying your husband.'

'Corlath?' Harry asked, and Aerin heard the echo of it in the waking world before Harry's conscious mind pushed her out and away, back into Luthe's arms. She stirred, opening her eyes, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. She had never had any intention of leaving Harry entirely alone, now that she'd come to the hills she'd been born for. Having made it a promise might not have been the wisest thing she had ever done, but... They would make it through. Harry might even do better, knowing that she wasn't the only one that often felt she failed to live up to her own stories.


End file.
